Agreed. As a BB 10 user, most of the information's given in the article are interesting for me. For developers this might be updated long ago in the tech blogs. But for a normal user i think these information's are still vital and i cannot see any harm in re-posting it.

I totally agree!
My thanks to the OP for compiling this information into such an easily understood format.
It's normally out of reach to us average end-users.

Thanks for the reply. I was responding because people might not fully appreciate the importance or the technical achievement of the BlackBerry engineers' work.

Let me explain. The wizardry I describe allows Linux binary code to run on QNX. An Android developer might write a Linux extension for various reasons, one being greater performance, and/or access to specific hardware acceleration APIs. So think of the hack as the key that unlocks the door to real hardware acceleration. That will come, as you have rightly pointed out, and has BlackBerry has promised. The big wins are in 10.2.x - compatibility has increased so much we can install .apk files directly onto BB10. And performance is fantastic.

In 12 years at The Register this is one of the most impressive hacks I have come across; it's a really neat piece of work.

I have written quite a bit about how Google may lose control of Android, and its attempts to regain control, by encouraging developers to write to Google-specific service APIs. If Google loses control and Android binaries becomes a portable, then "Android the OS" ceases to matter. For example, here last week.

BTW, I've seen a few posts here talking about "emulation" - but what BlackBerry is doing is not emulation, it's way better than that. The Dalvik JVM is a native QNX app, it's interpreting byte code, and the processes are QNX processes. It's all ARM underneath.

Thanks for the reply. I was responding because people might not fully appreciate the importance or the technical achievement of the BlackBerry engineers' work.

Let me explain. The wizardry I describe allows Linux binary code to run on QNX. An Android developer might write a Linux extension for various reasons, one being greater performance, and/or access to specific hardware acceleration APIs. So think of the hack as the key that unlocks the door to real hardware acceleration. That will come, as you have rightly pointed out, and has BlackBerry has promised. The big wins are in 10.2.x - compatibility has increased so much we can install .apk files directly onto BB10. And performance is fantastic.

In 12 years at The Register this is one of the most impressive hacks I have come across; it's a really neat piece of work.

I have written quite a bit about how Google may lose control of Android, and its attempts to regain control, by encouraging developers to write to Google-specific service APIs. If Google loses control and Android binaries becomes a portable, then "Android the OS" ceases to matter. For example, here last week.

BTW, I've seen a few posts here talking about "emulation" - but what BlackBerry is doing is not emulation, it's way better than that. The Dalvik JVM is a native QNX app, it's interpreting byte code, and the processes are QNX processes. It's all ARM underneath.

That is apples vs (anything but an apple or an orange) and makes no sense to this discussion.

What they did is done ALL the time. You're just not in the industry to know the details.

Riiight.

And you've done this before? Last week perhaps? After tea?

Wine has been in development for 20 years. It's still not like BBRY slapped together a better Android emulator by using only opcode translation that runs faster than their previous version in less than a year.

Wine has been in development for 20 years. It's still not like BBRY slapped together a better Android emulator by using only opcode translation that runs faster than their previous version in less than a year.

Oh wait... they did.

Things like this don't happen every day.

No, that is not what this is. This is emulation of a certain number of Linux calls to allow certain native ARM/Linux code to run on ARM/QNX.

They didn't rebuild dalvik. And this is certainly nowhere near as enormous a project as Wine. Not even close.

This is very much like the old lxrun, which was written largely by one person in the late 90's. In fact, QNX had said they were working on porting lxrun to Neutrino some years ago. So it may not just be like lxrun, it may actually be lxrun.

I never said they rebuilt dalvik, It's all about how the two are Frankensteined together.

The comparison to Wine was in regards to the complexity of the issue.

It's not a simple project, it doesn't happen every day, and it demonstrates a deep understanding of the underlying technology that the QNX crew brings to the table and will continue to bring to the table in the future.

Wine has been in development for 20 years. It's still not like BBRY slapped together a better Android emulator by using only opcode translation that runs faster than their previous version in less than a year.

Oh wait... they did.

Things like this don't happen every day.

I've not done it myself, but I use it every day and it's all around me. It's mostly labour, but takes smarts to complete it and know how to adjust for differences. Surround yourself with talented developers and you'll see much more.

Things similar to this happens every day. The world is a big place and we don't see a fraction of what goes on behind closed doors.

Works... Yes. Works as well as it should... NO. Can not send pictures from within other BlackBerry apps and when searching for pictures, I don't get thumbnails, so you have to know the files name you are looking for.

But there is a lot of potential here... just don't expect that a version 10.2.1.1055 is going to change anything for average consumers. Maybe 10.3 will (along with better hardware) (along with marketing) (along with carriers actually carrying devices)....

As inconvenient as this is, it's really kind of the exception to the rule. Generally, many APKs have run very, very well on my Z30, including games with complex 3D models. I will say that yes, sometimes you have to do a restart (or, yes, two restarts) before something works right, but I'm honestly very impressed.

However disappointed you might be that IG has trouble uploading existing photos (and however mystified I am that the front camera turns upside-down for some weird reason), it works pretty decently. Netflix is great. Kik is even pretty good. I've been hard pressed to find anything that isn't at least moderately functional.

I don't think anybody's seriously claiming that this fixes everything. I LOVE BB10 and I'd much prefer to have everything I want available as a native app. I'm looking forward to the day when badges reading "Available in BlackBerry World" are just as common in advertising as "Available on iTunes" and "Available in Google Play". I do think, though, that for someone who likes BB10 and just wants to fill a few gaps that this will be very appealing.